Zodiac is a 2007 American mystery thriller film directed by David Fincher from a screenplay by James Vanderbilt. Robert Downey Jr plays the alcoholic crime reporter Paul Averi, Jake Gyllenhaal the Political Cartoonist Robert Graysmith and Mark Ruffalo the dependable cop David. They pursue an unknown man who attacked Darlene Ferrin and Mike Mageau with a handgun at a lovers’ lane in Vallejo, California on July 4th, 1969. Only Mike survives. One month later, the San Francisco Chronicle receives encrypted letters supposedly written by the killer calling himself “Zodiac,” who threatens to murder a dozen people unless his coded message containing his identity is published.
Based on the non-fiction books by Robert Graysmith, Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked, published in 1986 and 2002, respectively, the movie is a True Crime gem. It tells the story of the manhunt for the Zodiac Killer, a serial murderer who terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area during the late 1960s and early 1970s, taunting police with letters, bloodstained clothing, and ciphers mailed to newspapers. The case remains one of the United States’ most infamous unsolved crimes.
We know by now that we are in good hands with director David Fincher; Seven, Fight Club, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Social Media. In Zodiac, Fincher manages to build outrageous tension in a
talking heads movie. He delves in to the characters and lets the action flow from the story. We are in the streets of San Francisco, in the moment, feeling the dread of knowing an active serial killer is on the loose.
Zodiac is one of the first and best True Crime full length movies. It is still powerful, suspenseful and above all scary. Watch it and enjoy. He has never been captured.
